“Obviously, filling that shortfall is going to be a major issue,” said John Goodwin, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the agency that helps coordinate funding for Bay Area transit projects. “How that is done has not yet been determined.”

Drivers taking the afternoon route on eastbound 92 from the eastern touchdown of the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge to I-880 face what state officials consider the fifth-worst commute in the Bay Area.

The gridlock is expected to continue for many years, even with a major toll-funded improvement project set to begin in fall 2006.

Officials with the state Department of Transportation say the project, which will completely realign the outdated interchange, is now expected to be completed in late 2010, a few months behind schedule.

But it remains unclear how much ongoing delays will cost and, if there is a shortfall, who will pay for it.

Asked about a recent Bay Area Toll Authority progress report that states the estimated final cost of the interchange project is $53 million over the current budget, Caltrans spokesman Jeff Weiss emphasized the report is merely a projection.

“It doesn’t mean there’s a shortfall,” Weiss said Tuesday. “It does mean they may have to come up with extra funds if that higher cost comes to bear.”

The report, which appeared in a toll authority newsletter released in October, said delays are expected to bring the total project cost to $186 million.

That is about $53 million more than theamount the toll authority and, to a lesser extent, the Alameda County Transportation Authority, have budgeted for the project.

The interchange project is being funded primarily through $122.2 million in money raised through the toll authority’s voter-approved Regional Measure 1 toll bridge program.

Bay Area voters in 1988 approved a measure that authorized the use of bridge tolls to pay for about seven different freeway and bridge projects.

Of the projects identified in that measure, only the I-880/92 interchange in Hayward and a new Benicia-Martinez Bridge have not been substantially completed.

And while the Hayward interchange project has yet to begin, traffic getting from I-880 to 92 and back appears to be getting more clogged.

Goodwin, the MTC spokesman, notes that the afternoon commute on eastbound 92 in Hayward from Clawiter Road to the interchange skyrocketed from the Bay Area’s 35th-worst commute in 2001 to the 15th-worst commute in 2002 and finally to the fifth-worst in 2004.

The rankings are measured in terms of weekday hours of traffic delay, which is defined as traffic moving at speeds of 35 mph or slower for periods of 15 minutes or longer.

Officials have different theories on what caused the spike.

Goodwin, pointing out that the same route was the eighth-worst commute back in the high-tech boom of 2000, cited economic reasons.

“As near as I can figure, you’ve got a greater number of people who are working on the Peninsula and living in the East Bay than we had in 2003 and 2002,” Goodwin said. “It illustrates the rebound in the Bay Area economy.”

Bob Bauman, Hayward’s public works director, said he believes the gridlock has more to do with the project to widen the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, which was completed in 2003. A smoother cross-Bay ride has encouraged more people to use the bridge, Bauman said, only to get stuck when they reach the Hayward interchange.

Weiss, the Caltrans spokesman, said the bridge project got ahead of the interchange project because the bridge project ended up being easier.

“You’re not affecting houses and utility poles and cities,” Weiss said of the bridge widening. “When you’re on dry land, in an urban environment, there’s a lot of things you have to take into consideration.”

Weiss said the most recent delays stem from new state wetland mitigation requirements that have caused a redesign of the new interchange.

Instead of providing wetlands at the busy interchange, Caltrans has decided to provide wetlands off-site at the Newark Slough.

Otto Warmbier was arrested in January 2016 at the end of a brief tourist visit to North Korea. He had been medically evacuated and was being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center when he died at age 22.